Skip to main content
Dessert

Syrup of Roses

A sweet syrup made by steeping damask roses in boiling water, then reducing with sugar and water, optionally clarified with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Syrup of Roses

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Gather a pound of damask roses when the sun is hot.

  2. Put the roses into a jug with a quart of boiling water and cover it.

  3. Let it steep for seven hours.

  4. Strain off the water.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the strained liquid with 1 pint of water and 1½ pounds of loaf sugar until it becomes a rich syrup.

  2. Skim the syrup well while boiling.

  3. If desired, clarify the syrup with the whites of eggs.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the syrup and cork it tightly for storage.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Rose + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Rose + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Damask roses
Provide the rose aroma and flavour that the infusion draws out into the water.
Loaf sugar
Thickens the liquid into a syrup and provides sweetness and preservation.
Whites of eggs
Optional clarifier that binds impurities so they can be skimmed off, leaving a clearer syrup.

The step that matters

Skim the syrup well while boiling. Boiling the sugar solution draws impurities and foam to the surface. Removing them as they form keeps the syrup clear and reduces cloudiness in the finished bottle.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes